


A Tale Told In Two Stories

by sarcastic_fi



Series: Marvel Modern ReMix (no powers) [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Amnesia, Family Dynamics, Genetic Engineering, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Kid Fic, M/M, Medical Conditions, Same-Sex Marriage, Surrogacy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3958123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcastic_fi/pseuds/sarcastic_fi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2024 Tony wakes up with a hang over and two children calling him Dad.</p><p>In 2014 Tony (in the midst of a divorce) and Steve (on temp leave from the army) receive some shocking news from Howard about an experiment he had been running and it's unexpected results</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stay Together For The Kids (Part I)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a kid!fic, with no mpreg.

Tony was dreaming of his dad. He was lost, alone in the labyrinth like mansion and everywhere was dark. Everything hurt. He wanted his mom, but he knew she was dead and not even the vague scent of Channel could comfort him. His nanny would have done, or Edwin Jarvis their loyal butler, but thinking of them made his heart hurt a thousand times worse than his pounding head. Without a light to guide him he could only follow the echoing voice calling out “daddy” repeatedly.

“Dad!” The voice was sharper now, ringing familiarly through Tony's head. 

“Dad, you have to get up!” Get up? Tony knew his father wasn't asleep. He was pretty sure he had never seen Howard asleep, the man was like a machine, drunk by the time Tony had been settled in his own room and at the office by the time Tony had been allowed to join his mother for breakfast. 

“Ow!” He groaned, a sharp slap on his upper arm had Tony jolting up and opening his eyes. All around him the world was a cruel and harsh environment. Bright light streamed into the strange room. His head was on fire. He reached around clumsily for the bedside table hoping that whoever he had been partying with last night had the decency to leave him some Asprin. 

“Careful-” A female voice, too young to have been the aforementioned co-partier, called out sharply in warning. Too late. Something solid and cold escaped his grasp and fell loudly onto the hard floor beneath, shattering. The girl gasped, a short abrupt sound that was caught between hurt and angry. Tony crawled back under the covers, respecting their warmth and the sense of security they offered. His first home was his tech lab, his personal one not the StarkTech one with all the people bustling in and asking for signatures every two minutes, but his second home had always been in whatever bed he had fallen asleep in. It was a gift, being able to sleep anywhere, and Tony balanced it out with not needing to sleep very often. Now was one of the times where, in the absence of medication, sleep was more than welcome. 

“Oh no you don't!” The girl spoke again, her voice an uptight melody of stress and glee. Seconds later Tony found himself drenched with icy water, staring at a giggling child and a teenager holding an empty glass with a familiar expression of 'who me' all over her face.

“What the hell was that for!” Tony snarled.

She blinked up at him with beautiful bright blue eyes and held out her fist, uncurling her fingers to reveal two round tablets that were easily recognisable as Asprin. “It -was- for this.”

“I meant why did you throw it at me,” he snipped, as he dry swallowed the pills. Her expression was one of pure disgust and it reminded Tony of Pepper when she had seen him at his worst. That only made him surlier. “And who are you anyway?”

The girl reeled and the little boy stopped laughing. “Excuse me?” Her crystalline eyes darted around the room as if looking for something, and she stilled when she has located her target. “How drunk were you last night?”

He turned to look at what she had seen and shrugged at the small selection of beers and the half empty whiskey tumbler. “Well I don't remember anything so I'm guessing I had more than what's over there.”

“Yeah, just a bit,” she muttered, jaw tight with something stronger than disapproval.

“Daddy!” The little boy chirped, and Tony immediately recalled the dream he had been having. He looked down at the child, tow-headed with the same eyes as the girl. In all of Tony's life he'd never had such a sobering waking experience. He had the suffocating feeling that this wasn't part of a nightmare, that he truly was stone cold sober and awake. Somehow he had wandered into the twilight zone and honestly he just wanted something to make sense right now.

“What's going on here? Is this a joke? Someone recording this? Very funny!” He shouted, spinning around too fast and almost falling over a pair of ratty jeans that had been abandoned on the floor by the bed. He was peripherally aware of the girl grabbing hold of her brother and dragging him out of the room but his own trauma and confusion was his primary focus. 

He regained his equilibrium and raced around the room, trying to find evidence that this was some god awful trick of a scorned lover. Everything looked so perfectly in place. There were two dressers next to each other, both with a verity of men's products lined up, albeit belonging to very different ranges. Two built in wardrobes either side of the bed that blended in almost seamlessly into the duck egg shell blue walls and a larger-than-king-sized bed that Tony had been lying in moments ago that centred the whole room. The room was devoid of any photographs or other personal touches, which Tony found almost as disturbing as waking up to find two children staring at him calling him 'dad'. His phone! He just needed his phone, then he could call Happy and have him pick him up and take him home, away from this waking nightmare in which all the rules were written in Chinese... no, not Chinese (Tony understood and spoke some Mandarin), maybe Latin or Old Norse. Something dead and unintelligible. 

“Tony?” A boy's voice, on the verge of breaking and filled with exasperation and impatience. “Tony, what are you doing?”

Tony spun around to face the speaker, finding a male copy of the girl from before. He had dark hair and blue eyes and an undeniably familiar mouth that was frowning at him. “Tony? Dad?”

“Edward? How the... how the hell did you grow up so fast?” When Tony had gone to sleep his son had been a strange four year old who spoke in tongues with his twin and hated loud noises. Now he stood before Tony as a half grown teenager. 

“Dad, you're behaving really weirdly. Even for you. You scared Joe and freaked Sara out.”

“Sara? That was your sister? She's so... old. And judgemental.”

“She's calling Aunt Pepper.”

“Aunt Pepper? As in my Pepper?”

“Aunt Pepper as in Aunt Pepper,” Edward enunciated deliberately, but Tony hadn't missed the flinch.

“Wait, I'm not married to Pepper.”

Edward's eyebrows disappeared beneath his fringe. “I think you need to see a doctor.”

“Wait, wait just slow down and tell me what is happening here,” he begged, slumping back down onto the soft surface of what he now assumed was his own bed. 

“What's happening here? I have no idea. I saw you yesterday at breakfast and you were your usual self and now you don't even recognise your kids?”

“That little thing is mine too?” He groaned. That definitely didn't make any sense. Not from what he remembered. If Edward was calling Pepper 'Aunt' it meant two things, the first and most important being that she was still in his life and on good terms with him. The second was that she wasn't the mother of his other kid. Which made sense, the boy looked nothing like either Tony or Pepper. Which begged the question, who did he look like? What was the missing part of the equation here? Other than the missing years of his life, that was.

“Yeah, Tony, but we like to call him Joe.”

“Joe.”

“As in after Grandfather Joseph? You and Pops named him.”

“Pops as in... seriously? Me and Steve freaking Rogers? God, I have drank myself into a hell dimension or something!” He groaned.

Edward gritted his teeth and balled his fists by his side. He stalked around the edge of the bedside table and collected the item that had fallen on the floor earlier. He flung it down next to Tony, retorting, “yeah, a real Hell!” before storming out of the room, presumably to join his siblings. Tony sighed. He was not prepared for teenagers. When he'd last looked his kids had been four years old and the biggest challenge had been convincing them to communicate with him in English. He reached over to see what it was his son had thrown at him; it was a fractured home made pottery frame that surrounded a family style portrait. There was the recognisable faces of Steve and Tony, along with the teenage twins and an additional two rug-rats, one of whom was Joe and the other a new born baby. Shit. How did that happen?


	2. What Never Was And Always Will Be; Part I

Ten Years Ago (2014)

 

 _Please don't leave me._

The words never left Tony's mouth. The thought didn't run through his mind, not as a coherent cogitation, but it was the underlying longing of his whole soul. Her bags were packed. This moment Happy was couriering her belonging to the limousine. This isn't goodbye, Pepper had assured him. She still loved him, she just wasn't in love with him anymore. She'd asked him to admit that he felt the same way, that the ring and the shared bank account were as much of a weight around his neck as they were to her. He couldn't say the words. Wouldn't let herself feel better about the decision she was making. He really was that childish. Still, he'd meant it when he promised 'death do us part'. It would have been no hardship for Tony to carry on the way things had been, with Pepper as his wife. He had a job he loved, tinkering away with AI technology in a lab owned by his father but miles away from Howard's direct scrutiny. Nepotism would have ensured he could work on whatever projects he wanted to without fearing dismissal. The military were endlessly interested in Tony's work, so he was left mostly alone until it was time to present and then he got the honour of showing off his pride and joy, followed by parties during which he would imbibe and improbable amount of alcohol before collapsing in bed for a three day rest. Okay, he admitted he wasn't the best husband, but Pepper had been the best wife. What was he doing to do without her?

“We'll be going now, sir,” Happy advised him.

Tony nodded, staring blankly at the tumbler of bourbon cradled between his hands. 

“You'll call me if you need anything?” Happy prompted him.

“No,” his voice came out hoarse, surprising him with the emotion that thickened his throat. He gulped down the contents of the glass before pouring himself another. “No. I won't be needing you anymore, Happy. I want you to stay with Pepper. Make sure she has everything she requires.”

“Tony,” Happy began, but there was nothing left to say. They had been friends a long time, but that was why Tony knew he was doing the right thing. The feeling was unfamiliar and unwelcome, but he was stubborn enough that once he had an idea he would keep going until it came to fruition. It made him a brilliant engineer, but it also sometimes made him a terrible person. He was hoping this decision was the exception to the rule. 

“It's okay, Happy. Really.”

Happy nodded once, obviously seeing right through Tony's pathetic attempt to convince him but his best quality was his unending loyalty. Even when commanded to leave his boss's side he wouldn't disobey. Tony knew that Happy would be better off with Pepper, and Pepper would never be unsafe with Happy around her.

“Goodbye, Boss.”

“So long, Happy.”

Happy picked up the last holdall of Pepper's belongings and deserted the building. Now Tony could truly be alone with his misery and the consequences of every disastrous life decision he had made. He asked JARVIS to put some music on, and AC/DC's 'Have A Drink On Me' burst into life. He was glad he'd programmed Jarvis to be so perceptive. He took heed of the AI's advice and poured another drink, and another, and another until he couldn't control his arms and the glass turned into five. Darkness welcomed him soon afterwards.

When Tony woke up music still filled the empty rooms of his Miami house, this time the song was 'Cochise' by Audioslave*, and the decibels were at a much more acceptable level. The music wasn't what woke him and neither, to his surprise, was it the urge to pee. It was the shrill trilling of the house telephone. Tony groaned and buried his head beneath the copious pillows of his oversized bed.

“Sir, your father is attempting to contact you via the telephone,” JARVIS advised him helpfully. 

“Oh is that what that ringing noise is? It's annoying. Mute it, will ya, J?”

“Unable to comply. It seems the telephone has not been programmed with a 'mute'. I believe it's possibly because that would invalidate the whole purpose of the machine.”

“Can't mute it? Well, then turn the tunes up,” Tony said, determined to ignore both the attempt at communication from his father and his own burgeoning alcohol induced headache. He was Tony freaking Stark and he would not be felled by something as trivial as single bottle of William Larue Weller Bourbon*. 

The music did not rise in volume. In fact, seconds after Tony voiced the command the noise level in the house dropped to almost nothing leaving only the high pitched ring of the phone. Sometimes Tony regretted the 'intelligence' part of the AI. “JARVIS, buddy, we talked about this!”

“Sir, your father is leaving a voicemail message. Music would impede your ability to listen to it.”

“Is that a promise?” Tony muttered, before gulping the rest of his drink down. In the background Tony could hear Pepper's sharp professional tones as she recorded the message for “Mr Tony and Mrs Pepper Stark”. He was going to have to change that.

“Tony, it's your father,” Howard began and Tony rolled his eyes. Like he could ever mistake his father's stilted tones for anyone else. He had forty-four years of experience. “I was hoping you'd be at home, but I imagine you're uh... I have important... news. I can't tell you like this... just... call me back.” 

Call him back? Hell no. Tony had a much better (read 'worse') idea than that. “JARVIs, ready the jet.”

“Of course sir, instructions have been sent to the flight crew and the airport staff. May I ask what the destination would be?”

“New York. I'm going home, back to where it all started.”

“Very good, sir. Are there any other arrangements to be made? A hotel, perhaps?”

“No need JARVIS. My father has suddenly decided to remember I exist, I think the man deserves more than a mere phone call. He deserved the one hundred percent authentic Tony Stark experience, in the flesh, and what better way to experience that than by arriving unannounced for a stay at the Stark Mansion?”

“Is that a rhetorical question, sir?”

“I'll be ready in two hours,” Tony said, ignoring his AI's attempt at humour.

“Sir, has anyone ever told you that you make the best decisions when you are hung over? If so then I would like to be the one to inform you they were almost certainly lying to you.”

“Thank you, Jarvis. I know I can always trust on you to raise my spirits when I've sunk so low.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * “Chochise” by Audioslave (2002) was used in the second trailer of Iron Man (2008)  
> * William Larue Weller Bourbon – a brand of whiskey priced roughly $100 (ref. http://whiskey.underthelabel.com/d/c/American)


	3. What Never Was And Always Will Be; Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments! Seriously, you guys make my day!

Five hours and thirty-seven minutes later Tony rang the doorbell of his unhappy childhood home, suitcase in hand and Ray-Bans firmly in place. His mouth twitched with nervous impatience as he waited for someone to answer. He was never sure of what kind of welcome he would receive in his father's house, other than that it would not be the warmest. With Pepper at his side his father was always cordial to the point of being a stranger, there were no cutting words about Tony's wasted potential, no corrosive comments insinuating that Tony wasn't his own man because he worked for his father's company rather than strike out on his own. Pepper made a great buffer, and for the last five years she had been with him at every family event, including those pertaining only to the business. No doubt his father would ascertain the sad state of his son's marriage in minutes, adding another level of emotional abuse for Howard to sharpen his teeth on.

Tony popped a mint in his mouth to quell the rising nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. The door swung open. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Steve Rogers flinched. “I could ask you the same thing,” he pointed out, eyeing Tony's suitcase warily. 

“This is the Stark Mansion, and much to my father's disappointment I am a Stark, so the question is what are you doing here? Seeing as you are neither a Stark or in the employ of one. Unless the army paid you so badly that you're now in need of some extra cash? Honestly, Rogers, there are better ways of earning money than surrendering yourself to my father's whims. Prostitution, for example. You're a pretty boy, I'm sure you'd make a mint on the street corner.” He gave Steve a long lewd look. Before him stood six foot four of born and bread American muscle. He hadn't always been like this, Tony still remembered way back when Steve was 5'4 and less than a hundred pound soaking wet. 

“You done?” Steve asked, his arms cross over his chest in an effort to hide his own discomfort with the way Tony was looking at him. 

“If I say no are you going to shut the door in my face?”

Steve opened the door wider and stepped aside to allow Tony to come in. “Where is dear old dad, anyway?”

“Howard is in his study, he had to take a phone call.”

“Let me guess, the office called?” Tony was familiar with his father's workaholic nature. On the few occasions that Howard had made the effort to be at an event that was important to Tony, like birthdays, graduations, his wedding, his father was a constant slave to the humming of his cell phone. One call and that would be it, his father would either be tied up for hours answering crucial phone calls, or he'd leave immediately for the office. His wife's funeral was about the only ceremony that Tony recalled his father ever turning off the device, and even that only lasted as long as it took to get his mother's body lowered into the ground.

“I didn't ask,” Steve frowned.

“Of course you didn't, that would be rude.” The frown deepened. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”

“Here in your house or here on leave?”

“Not your life story, Rogers, just your presence tonight.”

Steve shrugged awkwardly. “I'm not sure yet. Howard called me, he sounded... off. Not himself. Said there was something of vital importance he had to tell me, asked me to meet him face to face at the earliest opportunity.”

Face to face? Tony got a voicemail asking him to call back, but Golden boy was invited to bonding time? And Steve wondered why Tony never had time for him. “Maybe he has cancer and he wanted to tell you he'd leaving all his money to you?” He suggested. Despite the lack of affection Howard demonstrated towards his son on a daily basis, the words left an ashy taste in his mouth. Tony wasn't a monster; he didn't wish his father ill. Still, it wasn't an improbable theory. 

“Tony! That's a terrible thing to say,” Steve chastised him predictably, but he wore his emotions on his sleeve and this time it was no small amount of worry. 

“I apologise, Steve,” Howard's voice boomed through the hallway as he picked at his $3,000 gold cuff links, a nervous habit he'd had longer than Tony had been alive. On the threshold of the foyer he stopped and looked up. “Tony? What are you doing here?” Genuine puzzlement filled his father's voice.

“You're the one who called, Pops.” Tony tried, and failed, to keep the bite out of his voice.

“Called, yes. You've never taken it upon yourself to answer my call in person before, in fact you've never answered my calls. Is the lovely Pepper with you?”

“She's in Miami.”

There must have been something in his voice because instantly Steve shot him a pitying glance and his father's eye brow raised. “What did you do this time?”

“You know what, you're supposed to be my father but you can't even for one second even pretend to take my side? Why does it have to be something I've done?” Tony asked. It was both a deflection and an accusation; Tony didn't mind which his father took it as as long as it served it's purpose as a distraction. The three D's of dealing with his dad; deflection, defence and distract. 

Howard's brow creased. His eyes were intense when they met Tony's, and he knew he'd failed. “Because, Tony, I am your father. I would never wish my mistakes on you but we're too alike for me not to recognise that the likelihood of history repeating as a reality.”

“I didn't cheat on Pepper with the nanny. Or the head chef. Or my secretary. Or a newspaper journalist. Or the NATO liaison officer, or-” his father interrupted him.

“Thank you, Tony, that will be enough,” he was dismissed. 

Steve coughed discreetly into his palm, reminding Tony that they had an audience. Not that Tony minded, he'd grown up in his father's limelight and as such had always had an audience. It was, ironically, his father who preferred to keep the dirty laundry private. Tony presumed that was because it was bad for share prices, after all if Howard truly cared about his reputation then Tony assumed he would have been more circumspect when it came to his aforementioned affairs. Tony only knew about them because the press did. Hell, one of Hoard's ex-mistress's had even had the nerve to ingratiate herself with the ghostwriter who'd penned Howard's autobiography.

“So what are we both doing here? You left a message for me, asked Rogers to pay you a visit? You're not sick, are you?” Tony asked. He wasn't one to beat around the bush.

“Uh... no, Tony, nothing like that. Well, I had planned to break the news to you both individually, however....”

“Howard, please tell me what's wrong. My imagination is capable of filling the blanks in with pretty terrible scenarios,” Steve said softly. 

Tony wished he had a drink in his hand. 

“We'll talk about it in the sitting room, with drinks.” Apparently Tony truly was his father's son.


	4. What Never Was And Always Will Be; Part III

The process of pouring drinks was stilted and lengthy. Howard drew it out by echoing politeness. What drunk would you like? Good choice. This was a great year. Did you know... Stay when... Perfect. Look at the colour. You can't get-

“Stop stalling.” The words exploded from Tony's mouth with a bang. Tony's world would never end on a whisper. He wasn't built for it. He was a Stark. They announced their presence with fifty showgirls dressed in sparkling leotards and six inch stilettos. They wrote their name in twenty foot lettering on skyscrapers in the city that never sleeps. 

Howard touched his cufflinks and avoided eye contact. “Neither of you know much about my work. Most of it is classified to a level that I barely know what it is I'm doing or why. Steve, of course you know the project I was working on when I met you. I'm afraid that has a lot to do with what I'm going to tell you tonight.” Howard made his way to a chair, clutching his William Larue Weller bourbon like it was a life line. Tony sipped a gin and tonic that he didn't care for simply to show that he wasn't an inferior copy of his father. Steve winced every time he sniffed his own drink, not because of the alcoholic content but because he genuinely liked beer, and this wasn't a house that stocked something as plebeian as beer.

“Project Rebirth?” Steve named it, glancing at Tony.

“Don't worry, for the purpose of this conversation I'm clearing you both. Yes, Project Rebirth. We both know it's history, the original test subject was Dr Bruce Banner. That was before I was working with Dr Erskine. Things went wrong, and Dr Erskine had to go back to the drawing board. You, Steve, were the first successful human trial.”

“Wait a minute! You're saying golden boy is bottled? You made him into some kind of super-soldier by cheating. Human gene therapy?”

“I'm not exactly a super soldier, Tony,” Steve said sharply.

“It has military applications, yes, but Dr Erskine was interested in the healing aspect. To take someone with congenital or genetic defects and be able to manipulate their genetic make-up to remove the defect... it could revolutionise the health industry.” Howard fervently defended his work.

“So you played god and now Steve doesn't have to use his inhaler. What else have you done?” Tony said, accusation loaded in his words even as he kept the tone light. Another Stark trick. 

Howard sighed. “It's more complex than that, Tony, but for arguments sake; fine. Steve was the first successful phase, but we couldn't stop there. Funding was increased and a second phase was initiated. This time we didn't need a volunteer, we created them.”

“Human cloning?” Tony guessed with a snap of his fingers. His father sent him a disapproving glare before correcting him.

“Not cloning. Cloning is illegal in the US. They were test tube babies using DNA from two bloodlines with known genetic defects. We didn't expect them to thrive, the goal was to study their genetic material, but nine months later they were fully developed infants and once they reached the point of being self-dependant we had them officially 'born'.”

“You grew humans?”

“It's not the first time, Steve, although it's still highly controversial.”

“I assume there is a point here somewhere?” Tony butted in.

“Yes. Of course. If you'll have some patience. As I was saying, there were two of them, twins in effect, even though they didn't share a womb. They were, I suppose, born four years ago. No one expected them to survive this long, but they are both in reasonable health. The experiment had run through it's perimeters and we had to reapply for further funding, but when we brought our proposal to the board it was rejected on ethical grounds. We've been given a month to finish the project and then...”

“Dad, no one likes a tease; 'and then' what?”

“And then you have to dispose of the material. Including the children?” Steve whispered, horror flashing through his baby blues as all colour left his face. It was in that moment that Tony was reminded that Steve had seen war. He knew what the battlefield looked like and understood that what to the people in power was 'collateral damage' looked more like mass murder to anyone on the front line. Steve loved his country, but he wasn't as naïve as he looked. No one could survive war and come out unscathed.

Howard grimaced, his hand tightened around the glass of whiskey and he couldn't meet either Steve or Tony's eyes. He was a man who was aware that his own actions had brought them to this moment, and regret was not a strong enough word for what he was feeling.

“How is this our problem?” Tony cut in. He sounded heartless, and he guessed to some extent he was. Wasn't that why Pepper was leaving him? Because, according to her, he didn't love her enough? Well, as far as Tony was concerned the person to blame for that was standing right in front of him confessing his crimes. If his dad was asking for forgiveness then Tony was more than happy to deny him, after all Howard had been denying Tony all of his life.

“The genetic material used to create the children was samples I already had on hand,” Howard explained.

“Oh dear God... you are not saying you... you used your own material. If you're telling me you made me a pair of half siblings in a laboratory then I am one hundred percent done with you.”

“Not a sibling.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not a sibling; offspring. Both of you. I used the DNA from Steve's pre-serum sample and some samples of you, Tony. You are both their fathers, and the only reason they have to not be destroyed along with the rest of the research material.”

“You're a god-damned monster,” Tony ground the words out in a low voice. He couldn't have meant them more. His anger superseded shouting and screaming, it boiled in his gut at 2750 degrees Fahrenheit. It was all consuming. To his surprise it was Steve who reacted first. He walked out. It was possibly more shocking than Tony's anger, because Steve was infallibly polite, he had old fashioned manners like he was born ninety years ago rather than being raised in a culture of crudities and consumerism that placed an emphasis on being cool rather than good character. For Steve, walking out of the house without a word was like a slap that echoed through the halls and left a red hand print in its wake. 

“Tony-”

“Oh no. I think you have said enough, dad. I mean, jeez, what the fuck were you thinking? Was playing God really worth this? I hoped you enjoyed the journey because this has surely secured your place in Hell.”

“The progress we made with Steve was just so impressive. More than we had even dreamed, especially after the failures with Dr Banner. We got... carried away. Creating life was a side effect of our research, not the intention. There was no plan of action for this eventuality.”

“No, you know what, for once Golden Boy said it best. I'm done, I'm out,” Tony placed the glass down, almost surprised to see it still in his hand, and made his way to the door. He didn't have a destination in mind, had come here with the idea of spending the night until he figured out what his next step was after what had happened with Pepper. Now, though, it was obvious that he needed to be as far away from his father as possible. 

“Tony, you can't just walk away from this!”

“No? Really? That's strange, because it's exactly what I'm currently doing.”

“I know you didn't ask for this, but you're responsible now. You need to save them.”

“Saving people?” Tony laughed darkly. “Oh no dad, you didn't raise me to be a saviour. I'm not a hero. Go find yourself another scapegoat for your guilty conscience.” Whatever his dad said to that was lost in the slam of the heavy solid wood door. Tony was out of that house and calling for a car. He couldn't stop, didn't want to think. He needed to escape this and finding the nearest bar seemed like the best option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * 2750 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which iron melts. You know, because iron man. Sorry-not-sorry.


	5. What Never Was And Always Will Be; Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this now has a companion piece and I'm planning a third! The current companion piece is an Agent Carter story and the one after that will be X-Men First Class. They all fit together and make sense, but you do not have to read them all to enjoy any one of the series.

Steve left Howard’s mansion feeling more shaken than he had any right to feel. The news wasn’t the happy but scared kind delivered by a nervous spouse with hand hovering over womb. It wasn’t a lawyer coldly informing him that an ex had kept a child’s existence from him but needed him to step up to the plate. It certainly wasn't the clammy awkwardness of having your ex-girlfriend with whom you'd confirmed your gayness with tell you she had missed her period. This wasn’t traditional and Steve didn’t know if he was even entitled to the feelings of being invited to fatherhood. He’d had an extraordinary life, from the moment he met Howard Stark his stars had changed and he’d always believed it to be for the better, but now he felt selfish knowing that his decision to become a lab rat in hopes of bettering himself had played a part in creating life resisted to the parameters of an experiment. The children – God! Children, plural! – were little more than the side-effect of a scientist and an inventor curious if they could manipulate genetics from conception. The only thing Steve was sure of was that these children needed saving and he wanted to be the one to do so. Paternal instincts or just the morality of a good man and a solider, it didn’t really matter. He could think about his motives after the mission had been completed. Instead of heading off to his crummy apartment in a not-as-bad-as-it-could-be area of Brooklyn with its magnolia walls reflecting back his lack of a life, he hailed a taxi about a mile from Howard’s and had it drop him off at a café he frequented when he couldn’t sleep. He ordered a black coffee and waited for his guest, a meeting he’d arranged while watching the streets pass him by in the cab. It was quiet enough that the jingle of the door opening alerted him to her arrival less than thirty minutes later, and he stood to receive her.

“Captain Rogers,” she nodded stiffly.

“Lieutenant Hill,” he replied, as formally as her.

She sighed and rolled her eyes, breaking the tension. “Sit down, Steve, before you fall down.” She caught the attention of a waitress and ordered them both cappuccinos and hamburgers. “You called, I came. How can I help?”

“Maria, it’s good to see you. I’m sorry to call out of the blue… I… have a favour.”

“Then you’re paying for dinner,” she quipped. “You know you can ask me anything. I mean, I might not be able to help, but you’re free to ask.”

“I know you worked on the base with Howard and Erskine.”

She tensed, her expression blanking in that carefully perfected way of someone who was used to keeping secrets. “Why would you say that?”

“You were at Howard’s Christmas party, and again at Erskine’s funeral.”

She raised an eye brow at him. “So?”

“So, if you’d been at Howard’s party as his date then you wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near him again after that.”

“I’m a little insulted you think I’m foolish enough to fall for Stark charisma, but I’ll go with your theory for now. What makes you think I didn’t meet Erskine at the party and enjoy his company enough to miss him when he passed away?”

“Erskine left the party thirty minutes before you arrived.”

“Hmm, well, it’s well thought out. What if… what if I had previously been introduced to Stark via my association with Dr Erskine.”

“Abraham Erskine was a hermit. He only knew people involved with his work which included Howard and me.”

Their food arrived and conversation halted while they had another pair of ears near. Maria smiled nicely at the waitress and watched appreciatively as she walked away. “Interesting. What does this have to do with that favour?”

“I don’t want to put you in a bad situation, so shut me down if you need to and I’ll understand. Tonight Howard called me and Tony to talk about Project Rebirth… and the research that followed.”

“It’s classified. He could be in serious trouble for talking about that, even with you.”

“Please, Maria, I need to know if what he said is true. Will they kill the… the twins?”

Maria blinked, which for anyone else the equivalent would be hysterical crying. “Fury reassigned me yesterday morning but I never imagined… what can I do to help?”

“Have you... have you seen them?”

“Just once. I’ve only been assigned to the base for the last three months. I spoke to one of the lab assistances a few days ago and she says before I arrived there was almost no military presence on the base but ever since there has been an increasing amount of armed personnel.”

“They were preparing for a worst case scenario.”

“No one wants this to end up a sealed file, Steve, least of all me.”

“Tell me about them? I’ve uh… I’ve only known about them for a few hours and I already feel a huge obligation towards them. Do they have names?”

She shook her head. “Child Female and Child Male. They aren’t like normal children, you understand that? They haven’t been raised by parents, they’ve been manipulated by scientists. They have their own form of language, part hand signals like ASL and part gibberish that has just as much to do with pitch as it does words. The anthropologists have never been able to decode what they are saying with any degree of accuracy. They are intelligent, and emotionally competent, but there had been no effort made to socialise them or teach them any real world knowledge. If the boy is hurt then girl will hug him instructively, and if the girl is hurt the boy will cry on her behalf.”

Steve nodded, distracted. “This is where I ask for your help.” He took a deep breath, and blurted out the worst idea he had ever had. “I need you to help me break inside the complex and steal my kids.”

Maria gave him a long penetrating stare, the kind used to break hardened terrorists and men who wanted to ask her to dance. “Okay,” she said eventually, and bit another chunk out of her hamburger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all those who commented! I know I don't post often but I have not abandoned this story and have no many ideas and things planned!


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